7 January: Harlem Globetrotters day

Today is Harlem Globetrotters day - here are 10 things you might not know about the famous Basketball team:

1. Although they are named after the Harlem neighbourhood in New York, they didn't originate there. The first team formed in Chicago's south side and played their first game at Chicago's Savoy Ballroom on January 7 1927. It was 1968 before they even played a game in Harlem. Back then, they were known as the Savoy Big Five, but in 1928 a pay dispute resulted in several of them leaving and forming their own team called the Globe Trotters. They got themselves a manager, Abe Saperstein, and it was he who came up with the name New York Harlem Globe Trotters, intended to give the impression in the Mid West that the team had travelled a long way to their matches.
2. They weren't always known for their on court antics. In their early days they played serious basketball. It was the late 1930s before they started incorporating ball tricks. The reason for that was that the team was so good that they dominate their opponents on the court. In one match, they were winning 112 to 5 and the audience were getting bored. Team member Inman Jackson started doing some tricks and the crowd loved it - so their manager told them to do that in every game.
3. In the 1950s, the Globetrotters were so good that no other team would even play them. Saperstein's solution was to engage a team of permanent opponents who would dress up in different jerseys so the audience would think they were playing against a range of different teams.
4. The team have a song associated with them - Sweet Georgia Brown, a tune recorded in 1925 by Brother Bones.
5. The shortest team member is Jonte "Too Tall" Hall at 5'2" and the tallest is Paul "Tiny" Sturgess at 7'8".
6. They once had a team member who had one arm. Boid Buie, who joined the team in 1946 had lost his left arm in a car accident as a teenager. He was a member of the Globe Trotters for nine years.
7. The Harlem Globetrotters appeared in two Hollywood films in the 1950s, one of which was Go Man Go, with Sidney Poitier. In the 1970s an animated series was made about them and they also appeared in person on Harlem Globetrotters Popcorn Machine as well as appearing in other shows, such as Scooby Doo and Sesame Street.
8. They came in for some criticism in the 1960s, during the civil rights movement, when people said they were clowns and buffoons there to please white crowds. Jesse Jackson, however, pointed out that rather than making black people look stupid, they showed they were the superior players.
9. The first female professional basketball players joined the team in 1985 - Lynette Woodward and Joyce Walker.
10. Since 2007 the team have held a "draft" each year where hopefuls who fit the profile of a Globetrotter are chosen. Some of these, but not all, end up on the team. Two people who were selected by the draft but went on to do other things are Usain Bolt and Gal Gadot, the actor who plays Wonder Woman. Occasionally, non-players are made honorary members of the team. Honorary Globetrotters include Whoopi Goldberg, Bob Hope, Nelson Mandela and two popes: Pope John Paul II and Pope Francis.

Golden Thread

Terry Kennedy is inexplicably and inexorably drawn to the small town of Fiveswood as a place to live and work after university. He is sure he has never visited the town before, but when he arrives there, it seems oddly familiar.

Fiveswood has a rich and intriguing history. Local legends speak of giants, angels, wolves, a local Robin Hood, but most of all, a knight in golden armour. Fiveswood's history also has a dark side - mysterious deaths blamed on the plague, a ghostly black panther, and a landslide which buried the smugglers' caves.

Terry buys an apartment in The Heights, a house which has been empty for decades, since the previous owner disappeared. Now he has finally been declared dead, developers have moved in and turned it into six flats. Terry has the odd feeling he has lived in this enigmatic house before. But that is not all. Since childhood, Terry has had recurring, disturbing dreams which have been increasing in frequency so that now, he has them almost every night. To his dismay, the people from his nightmares are his new neighbours.

Except, that is, for Eleanor Millbrook. She is refreshingly unfamiliar. After Terry saves her from a mysterious attacker, they become close. However, Terry's nightmares encroach more and more on his waking life, until they lead him to a devastating discovery about who he really is.

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Goodreads Review for Golden Thread:

This is a standalone book rather than one of the "super" series. Excellent characterization, a "keeps you guessing" plot, and some fairly deep philosophical issues ! Would recommend this to anyone, but especially recommended if you would like to see a completely new "take" on the people with powers / alternate futures / general oddness type story lines. Somebody make the film !